from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. (physics) the characteristic of quarks that determines their role in the strong interaction

v. affect as in thought or feeling

v. modify or bias

adj. having or capable of producing colors

n. any material used for its color

n. the appearance of objects (or light sources) described in terms of a person's perception of their hue and lightness (or brightness) and saturation

n. the timbre of a musical sound

n. a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect

v. change color, often in an undesired manner

n. an outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading

n. interest and variety and intensity

v. give a deceptive explanation or excuse for

n. a race with skin pigmentation different from the white race (especially Blacks)

v. add color to

v. decorate with colors

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English colo(u)r, from Anglo-Norman colur, from Old French colour, color, from Latin color, from Old Latin colos "covering", from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to cover, conceal”). Akin to Latin cēlō ("I hide, conceal"). Displaced Middle Englishblee ("colour"), from Old English blēo. More at blee.

Examples

Speaking of the highly-coloured males, especially among birds, the same writer states that "the _normal colour_ (italics ours) is that of the young and the female, and the colour of the male is the result of his excessive variability."

Shadow is, on the contrary, necessary to the full presence of colour; for every colour is a diminished quantity or energy of light; and, practically, it follows from what I have just told you -- (that every light in painting is a shadow to higher lights, and every shadow a light to lower shadows) -- that also every _colour_ in painting must be a shadow to some brighter colour, and a light to some darker one -- all the while being a positive colour itself.

a considerable degree of what might be called naturalism, so far as good line-drawing and understanding of flower form goes, emphasis of colour being sought by means of _planes of colour_, rather than by planes of shadow.

a charge of a metal must rest upon a field that is of a colour or fur; or, contrariwise, that a charge of a colour must rest on a field that is of a metal or fur, -- that is, that _metal be not on metal, nor colour on colour_.